Text-to-speech (“TTS”) technology is used in many software applications executing on a variety of computing devices, such as providing spoken “turn-by-turn” navigation on a GPS system, reading incoming text or email messages on a mobile device, speaking song titles or artist names on a media player, and the like. May TTS engines may utilize a dictionary of pronunciations for common words and/or phrases. When a word or phrase is not listed in the dictionary, these TTS engines may rely on fairly limited phonetic rules to determine the correct pronunciation of the word or phrase.
However, such TTS engines may be prone to errors as a result of the complexity of the rules governing correct use of phonetics based on a wide range of possible cultural and linguistic sources of a word or phrase. For example, many street and other places in a region may be named using indigenous and/or immigrant names. A set of phonetic rules written for a non-indigenous or differing language or for a more widely utilized dialect of the language may not be able to decode the correct pronunciation of the street names or place names. Similarly, even when a dictionary pronunciation for a word or phrase is available in the desired language, the pronunciation may not match local norms for pronunciation of the word or phrase. Such errors in pronunciation may impact the user's comprehension and trust in the software application.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is presented.